7828 Round Up

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Seating bay
Seating bay
Assembled table tops awaiting stain and varnish
Assembled table tops awaiting stain and varnish

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A summary of work completed on 7828 in the last few months. It has become difficult to update at times when the coach is changing so quickly, but for several months most volunteers were engaged in preparing large quantities of components- either trimming seat parts, machining timber mouldings, varnishing, glazing, painting underframe or searching for brass work.

 

So, state of play as of today-

All seat back and end units are fitted, lined up and bolted down. We need some more screws to finish putting the full quota into each anchoring bracket, but as soon as they land we can install them, leaving the way clear to bolting in the seat bases.

Bases all trimmed, some are awaiting their piping. 8 armests are finished, the other 20 are having piping applied.

The luggage racks are up in the 3-bay saloon, and stacked up ready for the 4-bay. I would think they’ll be up by the end of, say, Tuesday. Table lamps are up in the 3-bay, ready for installation in the 4-bay, and the lights are up and working in the loos and vestibules. Ceiling lamps not delivered yet.

The droplights have been rebuilt, glazed with toughened glass, assembled and sealed, painted to gloss on the outside and varnished inside. Specially made felt sections (20mm x 10mm and 10mm x 10mm) have arrived to allow us to fit new seals to each side, which help with vibration and sound proofing as well as facilitating a smooth slide. These are ready to pin on, and then it’s just the leather straps to apply with the cleaned and painted fittings prior to installing in the coach. Each droplight, for saloon or door, has already been tested in it’s own numbered aperture.

Tables- all parts now made to reproduce the original early Period 1 LMS TO table. We borrowed a genuine example from the team at Swanwick, and have produced a set of 14 in solid utile. The previously mentioned leg base castings are machined ready to go, and the fixing brackets and tabs are sorted into boxes. 7 table tops have been assembled to date, it’s a fill in job when we get an hour at the end of another task.

Toilets- sink and loo fitted in No.1 loo, all works. Loo seats and lids to varnish. Parts ready for No.2. New toilet roll holder cast and fitted. Paper towel holders sourced and mounted, bins procured. Vacant/engaged locks have arrived thanks for team based on ELR, modified to suit 7828 and now ready to fit. New left handed keeper plates have been cast and drilled. Some jiggery-pokery to convert the door locking system back to as-built is underway. The main door handles are now fitted and working.

Vestibules- not much gone on here, apart from draught excluders fitted around the side door apertures, as these areas have been virtually finished for some time. The clips to hold open the partition sliding doors were discovered and fitted.

Underframe- fusebox in process of being put back where it was meant to be, and some painting undertaken at the ends. Still gloss black to go on some bogies parts and the trusses, when we shunt it out again.

Lining- continues… Livery- LMS transfers due in 2 weeks time.

A list of final jobs exists in the carriage shed, ranging from window cleaning to spotting odd missing panel screws, gluing in bell pushes to hanging lampshades. Come see.

7828 – Feb 2014

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Cold and wet couple of months at Rowsley. The regulars keep pushing on with the restoration of 7828’s interior. The vestibule and luggage area ceilings have been treated to further paint, and further panel scraping has almost completed the removal of the old varnish. The old saloon lower panels had become a source of concern- the seat rails and table brackets are screwed to them, and water damage from the windows and regular repositioning of fittings had caused many of them to split in crucial places. Some of the plywood panels had warped within the mahogany frames, others had disappeared, whilst a number of tenons had broken off in their mortises leaving corners flapping. The surviving panels have been stripped of beading and any usable sections of frame, and a complete set machined up and assembled- a whole two weeks work! These now await staining and varnishing to match the original sections of interior to be found on the partitions and upper areas of sidewall. Once these are fitted, the seat supports can go in.

Some interior transfers have been sourced, and the new artwork for the exterior insignia and numbers has been started in earnest (a contract job). The new castings for the passenger communication gear are just a few coats of paint away from being fitted, which would be nice to do as we could then put away the white paint.

We don’t have any appropriate tables for it yet, but we do now have all the brass wall mounted fixing brackets, adjustable table leg bases and clips for when we do. The timber draught excluders for the tops of the droplights are now repaired and covered in new felt, ready to be fitted with a set of new springs.

There has been a trip to York to delve into the archives, and several other ‘runs’ are planned to such far flung places as Birmingham, Devon, Peterborough, Telford, Sheffield and Matlock to collect other materials and components. The new moquette is now in the shed, and very excited I am about it too.

 

14th Carriage Restorers’ Convention

November 2013 saw the return to the annual carriage restorers convention to the National Railway Museum at York.

Stathis Tsolis of the NRM welcomes delegates to the 14th Carriage Restorers’ Convention

The weekend was focused around a number of presentations and practical demonstrations, along with networking opportunities and access to some of the heritage carriages (LMS 14241 & Topaz) not normally open to the public.

A demonstration of scumbling techniques by Mullins Studio.
Ian Matthews demonstrates lining using a coachliner brush and signwriting paint.
Stathis Tsolis shows the application of a varnish fix transfer. Further information can be found on the LMSCA website and NRM blog.

Presentations subjects included the restoration of the NER Railcar, water gilding, the Railway Heritage Registers Project, the NRM Carriages Illumination project, LNER restoration case studies, LMS 7828 restoration and Metropolitan Coach 353.

The NRM have produced a YouTube video summarising the event which can also be viewed on their blog.

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